1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a plastic fender for coping with thermal deformation, and to an apparatus which allows the plastic fender to move to cope with thermal deformation, by integrally forming a bellows shape with a mounting portion of the plastic fender.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, as environmental concerns and issues have increased, technologies for preventing environmental pollution are being researched. As a way to solve the environmental problems, vehicle manufacturers have proposed solutions for increasing fuel efficiency by maximizing efficiency of an engine, and solutions for increasing fuel efficiency by reducing weights of the automobiles.
Methods of increasing fuel efficiency by reducing weight of the vehicle include a method of increasing rigidity or durability of the existing alloy steel used as a material for the vehicle despite the reduction in weight of the alloy steel, and a method of substituting the alloy steel, which is used as a material for the vehicle, with a plastic material which is lighter in weight than the alloy steel and easy to ensure rigidity. The plastic material in the related art has an advantage over the alloy steel in that the plastic material is not corroded, but has problems in that colors of the plastic material are altered due to light, strength of the plastic material deteriorates, and the plastic material has lower rigidity than the existing alloy steel.
A fender for a vehicle represents what is referred to as a mudguard for an automobile, and refers to a vehicle component that covers a tire, that is, generally refers to a part where a side of a vehicle body extends in a flatwise manner. The fender for a vehicle is typically made of a steel material, but this causes an increase in weight of the vehicle, and the fender made of a steel material may be depressed or deformed upon impact which may be difficult to restore. Therefore, recently, a method of manufacturing the fender for a vehicle using a plastic material has been proposed to increase fuel efficiency by reducing the weight of the vehicle and more easily restore the fender shape damaged or deformed by impact.
A fender made of a plastic material as described above may reduce the weight thereof by about more than 40% than the fender made of a steel material, and may be manufactured to have various designs due to formability thereof. However, a greater thermal deformation occurs in the plastic material than in the steel material. In general, there are various methods of painting the vehicle, but the vehicle body line assembling capable of reducing manufacturing costs by using color matching of the vehicle and the existing facility, that is, a method of performing heat treatment and painting after coupling of the plastic fender to the vehicle body is advantageous.
However, when heat treatment is performed on the vehicle body, the fender for a vehicle made of a plastic material is damaged due to thermal deformation caused by a difference in coefficient of thermal expansion between the steel material and the plastic material. Various painting methods for solving the problem have been presented, but such methods incur additional costs and of the vehicle are not matched or inconsistent. In addition, a separate structure of a mounting portion of the plastic fender in the related art fixes the plastic fender to the vehicle body using a mounting method that has a separate structure, that is, using a sliding fixture, and as a result, there are problems in terms of time and costs since a separate sliding fixture is required to be manufactured, and the sliding fixture requires assembly through a separate manufacturing process.